Marine Life Murals Brighten Capitola

It's easy to zoom by the roadside murals in Capitola and just catch a glimpse of orange jelly fish or the shadows of a kelp forest. Here is a longer look at a few of the traffic-signal boxes painted by artist Bruce Harman in 2009, after the city of Capitola put out a call to artists in a competition to see who should paint the unsightly boxes.

"I love the undersea world, so it was a natural to do local Monterey Bay creatures," said Harman. "My idea was to make the boxes look like big aquariums, so I painted the concrete to look like fabric draped on a table." 

The murals were painted with spray paint for the background gradients and hand brushwork with acrylic paint. 

Harman earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Philadelphia College of Art, where he studied printmaking. He is a self-taught painter, and these days he is working on making prints of his paintings to exhibit and sell. Check out his exhibits at Dharma's on Capitola Road and Greenspace at 1122 Soquel Ave.

To contact the artist regarding commissions, e-mail: bruce@harmanvisions.com.

To browse Bruce Harman's work, visit: harmanstudio.com to see his commercial work, and harmanvisions.com for his personal inspirational work.